January 12th is designated as Blue Monday, the most miserable of the year. The festivities of Christmas are a distant memory, and winter still holds us in its grip. A few valiant daffodils and snowdrops poking through the mud do little to elevate the mood. At least that is the contemporary narrative.
However, we Christians, especially in the Diocese of Hereford are entering into a year of celebration. We have had three years to explore our central values of Christlikeness, prayerfulness and engagement and now we want to celebrate, not least because the diocese is 1350 years old this year. As Bishop of Hereford, it is an extraordinary thing to walk into the cathedral for a service passing a board that shows you have 105 predecessors in an unbroken line back to 676! Our diocese predates England and was carved out of a corner of the ancient kingdom of Mercia and the Romano-British kingdom of Archenfield. It is hard to see any connection between the wild, rural subsistence society of that time and the modern world. And yet our year will celebrate an unbroken thread of Christian faith, about the only thing that does link the ancient past to today. From the first Celtic saints like St. Dubricious who brought Christianity to this part of the world in the sixth century, to Putta our first Bishop, expelled from Rochester and finding a home here, to people like St. Aedfrith and St. Milburgha who linked this then obscure part of the world to wider Christendom. But not just our founders. Christians are described by the Apostle Paul as Saints. The witness of some remains through the centuries. For some there might be a stone memorial, but I doubt anyone will remember much about me as a Bishop in 50 years time when they walk past my name on the board. Over the last 1350 years the Gospel has advanced as much by ordinary people living it out in their homes, workplaces and communities as it has by the few preserved by history. That remains the case today. We would not have the healthcare system, education, good working conditions in factories, the abolition of slavery and countless other benefits but for such Christian witness and activity. We may feel we are struggling as a church today, but whether acknowledged or not much that is good in the modern world owes its origin to the Gospel. That is well worth celebrating.
+Richard